In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the concept of entering through the narrow door and the importance of knowing Jesus personally. The conversation explores the idea of salvation, the inclusiveness of the Kingdom of God, and the challenge of true discipleship. Clint and Michael provide insights into Luke’s unique presentation of these teachings and emphasize the need for personal introspection and a genuine relationship with Jesus. Join them as they delve into this thought-provoking passage and its implications for believers. Subscribe to the channel for more engaging biblical discussions and remember to like the video to support their work.
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Transcript
00:00:00:28 – 00:00:39:58
Clint Loveall
Hey friend. Thanks for joining us as we continue through Luke today in in the week together. Thanks for being part of it. We’re in the 22nd verse of chapter 13 of Luke. We got a little bit of time constraint today, so we won’t draw this out too far. But I think, Michael, this is one of those passages that we really get a good idea of how Luke does things, because Luke’s going to say several things that if you read, for instance, the gospel of Matthew here, but Matthew organizes them differently, and in Matthew, they represent several different passages.
00:00:40:03 – 00:01:00:20
Clint Loveall
Luke sometimes does this where he takes some of this stuff and he kind of mashes it together. And so we cover a lot of ground today. It’s probably familiar ground, but it’s ground. It gets it. It gets consolidated in Luke in an interesting way. So I’ll just read it quickly and then we can come back and talk about it.
00:01:00:25 – 00:01:25:57
Clint Loveall
Jesus went through one town and village after another teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone said, Lord will only a few be saved. He said, Strive to enter through the narrow door for many, I tell you, will try and enter, but will not be able. When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, Lord, open to us.
00:01:26:02 – 00:01:58:43
Clint Loveall
Then in reply he’ll say to you, I do not know where you come from. Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I do not know where you come from. Go away from me, you evildoers. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God and you yourselves are thrown out, Then people will come from east and west, North and south, and will eat in the Kingdom of God.
00:01:58:44 – 00:02:23:44
Clint Loveall
Indeed. So more last. Who will be first and some who are, some are first. Who will be last? So again, I would make the case that if you read the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, you will have encountered virtually all of these words, but you’ll hear some of them in parables or in conversations following parables. Some of them you’ll hear on this in the Sermon on the Mount.
00:02:23:49 – 00:02:48:57
Clint Loveall
Luke takes these things, condenses them and consolidates them. So we have Jesus saying these things, and it’s sort of thematic. And the idea here is that Luke has highlighted all of those passages that are a warning enter through the narrow door that this is not an easy life, the life of faith. Make sure you are known by the master.
00:02:48:57 – 00:03:23:51
Clint Loveall
Don’t get left outside. Some who are first will be last and some who were last, be first. And this idea of weeping and gnashing kind of again, a matthew phrase, a gospel phrase. And you would what this all accounts do is you do not want to be an outsider, make an effort to be on the inside. And that will be due to one’s relationship with Jesus, not one status in Judaism or one status in front of the law or anything like that.
00:03:23:56 – 00:03:34:39
Clint Loveall
Kind of an interesting I’d be curious, Michael, to know what a Luke and scholar does with this, because it’s very interesting the way Luke has shoved all this together.
00:03:34:44 – 00:04:06:18
Michael Gewecke
So this is actually a really interesting section of text that hinges, I think, on what assumptions we make about some of the key and maybe small and even hidden words. And in particular, I want to point our attention here to the many, many references that are made by Jesus saying like this is happening verse 25, then reply, He will say to you, I don’t know where you come from, all of you evil doers.
00:04:06:23 – 00:04:36:41
Michael Gewecke
There’s this entire text hinges. Clint, on whether you consider that to be a personal imperative or whether you consider that to be an outward facing imperative. And we actually get this, you might be more you might be surprised the number of times that we’ll have folks comments on the video like this and their interpretation that they begin with in a text is they assume when you come to difficult, challenging texts like this that the you is then it’s someone else is someone outside the walls.
00:04:36:41 – 00:04:58:33
Michael Gewecke
But I think is really clear in this teaching as Luke has prepared it for us is this idea that each person should take account of their own soul, that we should each consider our relationship to the master, that the you here is not plural in the sense of that whole group or a whole constituency. No, it’s you. It’s your relationship with the one.
00:04:58:44 – 00:05:20:27
Michael Gewecke
It’s your response to the one who is the Christ. And the question is who will be saved? Well, it’s the one who goes and is willing to wait up, the one who’s willing to go through the door. All of these metaphors help us. I think if we’re willing to see that we have something at stake in it and that that is rooted in humility.
00:05:20:27 – 00:05:46:57
Michael Gewecke
That’s not to say it’s where it stops and it doesn’t have something to say for for Christians as a whole or groups as a whole. But I think we should feel a force, the force of a text like this on our own hearts. This should impact us. Luke wrote this for us, and I think that we should be careful in our reading and interpretation of it in such a way that we don’t let it become a tool against others and that it retains its force in our lives.
00:05:47:08 – 00:06:11:36
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think the power of that and I think the best clue of that, Michael, is as you start the passage here, the question that occasions this is Lord will only a few be saved and this is a question about others. And Jesus instead gives a very harsh and hard answer about self. In other words, someone asked Jesus, What about those people?
00:06:11:36 – 00:06:37:46
Clint Loveall
Or What about those people? And he said, Look, you worry about yourself. Get in the narrow door, know the house holder, get to know the person making the decisions, because what is the ultimate what is the ultimate bad news in the passage? I do not know you. I do not know where you come from. And they say, Well, we we ate and drank with you.
00:06:37:46 – 00:07:01:42
Clint Loveall
We saw you in the street. We we thought you were in our town. None of that is knowledge. None of that is relationship. And we have here again, this fundamental teaching through the gospel that it is not in knowing about Jesus on which our ultimate security rests, it is in knowing Jesus. I do not know where you come from.
00:07:01:43 – 00:07:24:31
Clint Loveall
Go away from me. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. They will be there, but you will be thrown out if you’re not known. And then he tempers that by saying, But people from east and west, north and south, people from everywhere. So this is not an exclusion passage. This isn’t about ultimately that this number of people or that those people get in.
00:07:24:36 – 00:07:54:31
Clint Loveall
This is a very frank and open, honest challenge to make sure you’re one of them by knowing Jesus and by paying attention to one’s own life in a way that fits these criteria. And so an easy passage, I think, to let misdirect us, maybe an easy passage to misunderstand, certainly a difficult passage, particularly the way Luke presents it, but I think not altogether.
00:07:54:36 – 00:08:00:04
Clint Loveall
A while it’s challenging. I think it’s not terribly difficult to interpret.
00:08:00:09 – 00:08:20:34
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s true. And I will also point out that detail that you mentioned, Clint, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all the prophets in the Kingdom of God to the people Jesus was talking to, this was their lineage. These are the people that they called this their heroes. These are the national fathers who all of the people have come down to.
00:08:20:34 – 00:08:41:58
Michael Gewecke
And there was an assumption of if we’re in Abraham’s family, if we’re in Isaac’s line, if we’re Jacob’s people, then God is on our side. It’s just as long as we’re in that group, everything is fine. And what Jesus does is pulls the rug out from under that and says, No, it doesn’t matter whether you call the prophets your own.
00:08:42:03 – 00:09:11:51
Michael Gewecke
At the end of the day, it’s not just the lineage that will determine what God does. The people will come, as you said, come from the east, the west, the north or south. They there will be a surprising variety of people who do come the near away. But make no mistake, it’s a narrow way. Make no mistake that it’s a choice made by those who seek to be known by the master, not those who are given some kind of birthright or the assumption of their right to be in the midst of that conversation.
00:09:11:51 – 00:09:39:07
Michael Gewecke
And and that is, I think, a further critique actually, of even the Christian community when we, too, have rested on our laurels and said, well, we we know the Easter story. We grew up, we were baptized in the church. That is in some ways, Clint, just as much a temptation as it is a blessing, because the temptation is that we’ll make the assumption, well, we have John Calvin or we have Saint Augustine or we have Saint Paul.
00:09:39:14 – 00:10:04:04
Michael Gewecke
All of these people, right? Well, know that it’s whether or not we know the Masters, whether or not we’ve been saved by the one who came and called us out of our way of life into a new way of life. That’s what’s at invitation here. And if we’re able to hear that, then this becomes for us a moment in Jesus’s teaching to find that that small way, to find that new path that we might not find by ourselves.
00:10:04:08 – 00:10:30:09
Clint Loveall
Right. Because the two parables that precede this passage are about little things. They’re they’re not about large important things that are about that growing kingdom. And now we see what it means that the kingdom grows in people, that they go through the narrow door. You might try to enter, but you won’t be able if your heart’s not right, if you if you’re not there for the right reasons, if you’re not doing the right things.
00:10:30:09 – 00:10:55:49
Clint Loveall
And so I think all of the gospels, Michael, have this kind of language about separation. What I think is interesting about Luke is that in some ways he makes it the broadest. For instance, what I mean is in in Matthew, we all know that the first will be last. The last will be first here. Luke softens that a little.
00:10:55:53 – 00:11:33:18
Clint Loveall
Some who are last will be first and some are first, who will be last. And so they’re it’s less codified. It’s it’s less concrete in Luke, in Matthew, the narrow door, the wide door. Matthew feels compelled to kind of explain what that means. And so you have discussion following it here. Luke is comfortable with simply issuing the challenge and kind of assuming that people have to figure that out for themselves.
00:11:33:18 – 00:11:50:51
Clint Loveall
So rather than all of the exposition that goes with it, you have the challenge, you have the consequence, and that really leaves you with the calling. Oh, get this right. This is vital. This is important. This is crucial. Make sure you don’t mess this up.
00:11:50:56 – 00:12:13:48
Michael Gewecke
And you can see Luke’s editorial hand in this to Clint. And you led the conversation off with this is you can see how this theme that Jesus has clearly taught throughout this earthly minister as we see it reflected in the other gospel. But here Luke has combined it with a kind of consistent through line. It starts out with this question of salvation.
00:12:13:53 – 00:12:43:17
Michael Gewecke
It immediately moves to this, this parabolic kind of telling of the narrow door, the house, who the owner says, I don’t know where you came from, the people who protest that leading to this idea that, well, we’re aren’t we the Abraham’s people and then saying, well, no, it doesn’t matter whose people you are, there will be all peoples who come together, the ones who you might think are going to be left out are the people who are going to be include.
00:12:43:17 – 00:13:06:23
Michael Gewecke
All of these teachings flow with a kind of simple throughline, and we can see how Luke being attentive to the sources, being attentive to his study, being a deep thinker himself, he’s able to show us what Jesus was trying to teach in these moments. This is an incredible opportunity to to for a moment, see, this is what Jesus, his purpose on the Earth was.
00:13:06:23 – 00:13:51:01
Michael Gewecke
This is what the kingdom that those small things represent is going to do. It’s going to start with a small number, and it’s going to ultimately end with the scandal of East-West, North-South being joined together at that final banquet. And that’s the great gift that Luke is offering, though the gift is not without challenge. And we’re going to see that as we continue our study tomorrow, that the conflict at this point in Luke with the fair school leaders and the religious leaders, that conflict is real and it’s only increasing because of teachings like this, because it’s not a veiled attempt to make it clear that the people inside the circle are not exempt from the
00:13:51:15 – 00:14:11:01
Michael Gewecke
the demands of discipleship, not exempt from the demands of turning from their former ways. And so I think that what Luke is doing here is is a beautiful gift to us if we have the courage to hear it in the first place, and then if we have the faith to believe the good news in it in the second place.
00:14:11:06 – 00:14:52:15
Clint Loveall
Keep in mind that Luke brings with him a missionary sensitivity. This is Luke’s background, right? He meets Paul, he travels with Paul. So Luke is comfortable with the kind of language that forces a decision Matthew is making a case to the Jewish people. And so in in Matthew, there’s Old Testament passages in discussions about what they mean. Luke, I think is is comfortable with a much sharper approach, a claim from Jesus and a call to decide, because I think that’s part of His experience.
00:14:52:15 – 00:15:26:10
Clint Loveall
Michael I think having watched Paul preach and having heard Paul engage others, Luke is just more comfortable with this divisive kind of language that a decision has to be made. Are you in or are you out? And if you think you’re in, be very careful because you might in fact be out. If you think knowing who Jesus is, without knowing Jesus is enough, you’re going to be disappointed and I wonder if we see some of that experience show through in the way that Luke writes and in the way that we read some of these passages.
00:15:26:15 – 00:16:02:49
Michael Gewecke
That’s really interesting. I’ve gathered that I hadn’t thought of it in that way. There’s a sense in which maybe we might also be able to say of this idea of, you know, Jesus, we ate with you, drank with you, you taught in our streets, right? Like being Jesus’s fan isn’t enough. Sure, we’re not called to follow Jesus like a person follows the trajectory of a celebrity or a band were called to follow him with our real devotion for our life values to be changed by the man who shows us what it looks like to be last, that we might endure the hope of being called first.
00:16:02:49 – 00:16:21:50
Michael Gewecke
That that’s the kind of kingdom Luke is portraying here. It’s not a kind of worldly, feel good encounter. It is a life changing encounter with the Son of God who’s taken on flesh. And if we get the force of that, Clint, that that is going to move us closer to the heart of what Jesus was teaching and what Luke is showing us from that teaching.
00:16:22:01 – 00:16:38:22
Clint Loveall
Yeah, you know, we say we’ve said this a lot lately, Mike. I think this is a difficult passage. It’s not one that would probably seem particularly appearing appealing from a devotional standpoint as you went through it. But there’s good stuff here. If you stop and listen to it.
00:16:38:27 – 00:16:56:04
Michael Gewecke
We’re glad that you’ve made it to this point in the video. I want to encourage you to subscribe so you can stick with us through the study as we go through. Luke. Luke Excuse me. And of course, give this video a light that helps other people find it in the past when they’re doing their own studies. And they’d like to join us for this conversation until we see you tomorrow.
00:16:56:04 – 00:16:59:16
Michael Gewecke
Actually, excuse me, Monday. Be blessed. I’m.